JTB Spot Elevation

About

JTB Spot Elevation is an app to insert surveying Spot Elevation blocks and manage them on an Edit Properties spreadsheet.

Run SPINSERT command to insert Spot Elevation block. You can enter elevation value at command prompt or via a dialog window.

If your drawing have these spot elevation already drawn by lines and texts, you can run SPCONVERT command to convert these lines and texts to standard Spot Elevation blocks.

Run SPEDPROPS command to open a design spreadsheet window for editing many Spot Elevations all at once. On this spreadsheet, you can renumber Spot Elevations in increasing order, adjust their elevations by a specified distance, change their colors, scales, unit settings, and many more. This is a powerful command to manage Spot Elevation properties.

Trial version usage is limited to drawing file size of less than 700 objects only.

JTB Spot Elevation is available as an AutoCAD app on the Plug-ins or Add-ins tab.

Documentation

Installation

Use the AutoCAD app installer that also puts a button on the Plug-Ins or Add-ins Ribbon tab.

Usage

The commands are all revolving around an object: the Spot Elevation block. A Spot Elevation block has many properties: Elevation, Insertion Coordinates, Number, Unit, Group, Color and Scale:

+ Elevation unit can be feet, inches, mm, cm or m.

+ Normally spot elevation shows Elevation attribute. But it can be switched to other visibility showing its number.

+ Elevation attribute can be shown in many precision mode. For example, 12.2' can be shown as 12.20', or 12.200'.

All above Spot Elevation properties can be changed in bulk through powerful Edit Properties window in SPEDITPROPS command. You can work as quick as in an Excel. Feature commands are:

+ Renumber selected rows

+ Filter tool to show and edit only spot elevations of specified number(s), group(s) and color(s)

+ Adjust datums of selected rows

+ Change units of selected rows

+ Change display precision of elevations.

Command SPEDITPROPS:

Open a design spreadsheet to edit many spot elevation properties all at once.

Here are some hidden useful gestures for you while working with Edit Properties spreadsheet:

+ Right click to show the pop up menu. Click "Copy All to Clipboard" to have current worksheet data on clipboard. Then, you can paste them else where, for example, Excel.

+ Right click to show the pop up menu. Click "Paste Data from Clipboard" to insert clipboard data as new spot elevations. Data must have same format as the one you get when copying to clipboard. Otherwise, the application will reject.

+ Right click on color cell to open AutoCAD Select Color dialog box. This equal to F2 key.

+ Select multiple cells in a column, then pressing Ctrl+D will copy the top cell's value to others.

+ Select multiple cells in a column, type new value, then pressing Enter key will populate new value to all selected cells.

These lines and texts are manually drawn, or exported from other application.

If 2 lines and 1 text form a shape look similar to spot elevation. They will be converted.

Requirement are:

+ 2 lines are approximately equal length and crossing each other at midpoint and right angle + text has numeric value, and text size should approximately equal to half the line's length + text's position is not too far away from 2 lines

New inserted spot elevation's scale, layer and color will match the source objects.